He wrote recently in a comment that participation in the community - online or otherwise - improves lives. That is also my belief. Brian can write - he gets right to the core of an issue with the ability to craft an honest story. Take a look at what he writes to introduce himself on LinkedIn:

It's all about adaptation these days.

You do what you need to do in order to keep moving forward. If that
means you leave a stable service technician position in the Midwest to
attend school in Phoenix and proceed to get laid off from half a dozen
tech sector giants, then you find another industry in which to work.
You see things through and you make a point of wasting neither your
time nor the time of others.

Decided to make a go of working in the automotive industry about a year
before the economy tanked thanks to failing automakers. I find that
working on electronics again reminds me of just how much I loved being
in the tech sector ten years ago.

He's been a valuable member of this community and I wanted to take a moment to introduce him to you.

Why are you online?

Brian: Originally, to learn about my car - to make it faster, to fix it when things broke. In the process, I made a number of friends, several of which I now consider family. Through countless conversations on 2GNT.com about cars, I not only gained knowledge about my car, but came to understand concepts and theories which I've been able to apply to life outside the garage.

Furthermore, consistent reinforcement that, if I put my mind to doing something with a car, I will ultimately succeed, has given me a degree of confidence that maybe, just maybe, I might know what I'm talking about once in a while.

What prompted you to read and comment at Conversation Agent?

Brian: About a year ago, recognizing (and firmly believing) that participation in online communities empowered people to live better lives, I started wondering if there might be something on the web outside the forum where I spent most of my time.

I still can't recall who mentioned this site, but I remember feeling that what I was reading ("You've Got Comments") was genuine and it was one of those moments when someone else said exactly what I was thinking at the time.

I don't have much marketing or PR background, but the concept of connecting people and ideas through conversation is exactly what I found to be at the core of why participation in online car communities was capable of making such a difference in the lives of those who viewed themselves part of a community.

I don't feel I can speak much to specific business issues with which I have no experience, but there are plenty of opportunities to discuss connecting people and ideas.

What are you working on that you feel will connect ideas and people?

Brian: The last couple weeks have felt much like Christmas to me. I'm in the final stages of rolling out GearboxMagazine.com. As a Mitsubishi owner since 1996, I'm going to share stories of other Mitsubishi enthusiasts who share my passion for the brand. I hope to instill a sense that enthusiasts matter in the overall automotive industry.

Beyond that, by staying platform blind, I'd like to generate exposure to the ideas of others who enjoy their Mitsubishis in different ways (ex: drag racers interacting with off-roaders), highlighting similarities and hopefully realizing new ideas. Ultimately, if Mitsubishi themselves took notice and began to participate in the conversation with us, I would consider it the greatest accomplishment possible in the life of a gear head like myself.

What's more, I think I've got this all set up in such a way that makes it possible for others to jump on board and do the same for the brands about which they are passionate too.
It's focused, it's scalable, and it's literally kept me from sleep lately.

Who would you like to connect with?

Brian: People who are passionate about the power of online communities to enrich and empower lives. People who revel in sharing stories and information, without focus on monetizing or marketing. Not that I have anything against those who have such priorities, but there is nothing so appealing as genuinely fresh content and ideas being discussed by real people simply because they can.

Well, maybe the sound of a 1991 Mitsubishi Galant VR4 rally car flying past on a dirt road at about 100mph, but that's the gear head talking.

Automotive enthusiasts not currently using the web to further legacy
business plans. I already know plenty of people representing
well-known organizations in the social space - and they're great - but
I'd like to meet people just getting their feet wet in social media as
a gear head. If they recognize the value in participation online and
genuinely enjoy using their experience to help others solve problems,
all the better! (And super bonus points if these people are into A)
Mitsubishi B) rally racing or C) both.)

__________

Find Brian here, and here, where he makes his home online. He will find you in other communities where people look to connect with each other.

This is a concept than anyone trained in martial arts - three years of Karate-do for me - or schooled in any other kind of physical activity - especially gymnastics - knows well. If you played European football or volley ball, like I did, this idea applies there, too. It is the distance that can make the difference between a brilliant and effective move, and a near flop.

A small adjustment in posture can and does make a really big difference in business. Call it flexibility, culture, awareness, or call it change - the result is measured in hard metrics. 1/4 inch adjustments can mean:

better integration of marketing, public relations and advertising for an engaging and interactive experience - attention and details are part of this conversation

development around participants shared goals - this is especially helpful when joining or forming communities

building on the old axiom - standing for something vs. falling for everything - does declaring what you stand for eliminate flexibility in your view?

measurement metrics that are a better reflection of what is going on - correlation matters

balance between personal and company branding activities - where's the leverage point on human?

you may not think it's a big deal, but it can make waves from its tiny perch

the final push to go from good to great - taking a simple concept and making it awesome - who does the project help? How could it affect more positively?

There are passionate conversations going on about big scale change, and how things need to shift today. Yet, sometimes a 1/4 inch in awareness is all it takes.

I believe
in the idea of customer communities. Not so much those hosted by the
company, as that tends to imply a lack of trust, but those in which the
company ventures outside the fortified walls and participates in the
conversation with their customers.

Communities hosted by companies don't necessarily
imply lack of trust. I think if there is a way
that a company can facilitate an unmet need, for example for customers
or people interested in discussing "x", it would help everyone if they
did. To me, a successful blog, is a hosted conversation and can build
community. It's both activities.

Part of Brian's response can teach us a thing or two about customers and potential customers and how they enter conversations:

I
think that the issue of trust in corporate blogs stems from the
reputation of the organization in the community prior to the blog. It
is the perception of trust in the brand (and it's alignment with the
community focus) that is magnified through the act of hosting their own
community.

I recently learned of a new community while browsing Tino's Strada site.

Called "Nation of Go," it is a community promoting auto enthusiasts
to "Drive, Share, Connect." As a car guy, this sounds awesome to me.
There is far too much splintering in our corner of the web and
communities which seek to unify gear heads hold a special place in my
heart, but here's the rub.

Nation of Go is "A new social network for gearheads from BFGoodrich Tires."

BFGoodrich Tires? I've had them and feel they offer a high quality
product, but for them to get into the car community scene? It feels
wrong. I tried to justify it, recognizing that one thing ALL cars and
trucks have in common is TIRES, which pretty much means BFG is known by
any gear head you meet, but then I visit the Nation of Go site and they
make a point of mentioning, specifically, what BFGoodrich tires they
had installed on new vehicles which had come with other brands.

I believe that, when hosting a community, the value provided to the
community members should always be the focus. I understand that there's
a business need to get some kind of ROI out of the deal, but if a
community is going to be developed and spun as providing real value to
its members, then THAT needs to be the focus above all else. ROI comes
later, naturally, organically.

When I see a community hosted by a corporation, the first thought to
cross my mind (and very likely many other minds as well), is "They're
just trying to sell their stuff with this." It can put people like me
on full alert.

So, a community is being created to unify gear heads across the
country to "Drive, Share, Connect," but the first visit reveals there's
a van and a Mitsubishi parked somewhere in Bakersfield and, while we
might not know too much about these vehicles they're using for their
epic adventure across the country meeting people, we know exactly which
BFGoodrich tires they installed.

I consider successful blogs types of communities where the content draws people with similar interests together. While a Web site is written to help the user find information they're looking for, a blog is more a kind of place where people who are thinking about that information see each other, choose to interact with the ideas in the posts (or not) and with those who show up to do the same.

What if your organization doesn't have a baseline before starting a blog?

Start with customers

You won't feel the pressure to make it all about you - they've already experienced you, and you have a chance to make things better if the experience has not been great. Fix the problem first, of course. Inform them of more ways they can have to interact with you and especially with each other, if they so choose.

Many organizations have user group events and meet ups. Some companies have customer Advisory Boards. You could integrate some online with the face to face - for example, giving a way for users to stay in touch on topics and discussions started live. Continuity over time is one of the trickiest parts after you leave a successful event.

At the event you have the emcee getting everyone energized, online you have a facilitator for the conversation. In some cases that's the same person as the content curator, in others, she's a different person. Project scope and skill sets would determine that.

There's a lot more to say about trust. Maybe we can start by thinking about and thanking those professionals who are giving a human face to organizations, who are creating content - and experiences - for customers and their peers. By doing that, they are already making a difference where it counts most.

What's stopping you? How can this community help you take steps to get started? Weigh in.

PLEASE NOTE: this list was created as an experiment for research purposes at a specific moment in time. It is not a long standing recommendation, ranking, or blanket validation of skill sets and level of experience.

+++

When I speak at events and the topic of Twitter comes up, people often ask me how to build their streams with interesting peers to follow. I build mine starting from all the bloggers I knew first, then looked at the profiles of those they replied to (@reply), then added those who participated in planned chats and conversations.

While there is no steadfast rule on who to follow and what ratio of followers to have - yes, I realize I'm busting another Twitter myth - the noise/signal ration in your stream will depend on the messages of those you follow. So follow wisely and never be afraid of unfollowing someone. Twitter is the most casual of all social networks - the barrier to entry is quite low - and it has the potential of being one of the most useful - when you're not afraid of meeting new people quickly.

The Twitter list of suggested people to follow is not exactly helpful to businesses that are working on learning more about how you do public relations in new media. Since looking up a lot of profiles is hard work, and Colleen just left a comment calling me a collector of people, I thought I'd show you one of my collections on Twitter - that of professionals who do PR right. By that I mean they are helpful and pay it forward.

I'm not going to rank the list, because some of these professionals serve a niche segment or a specific industry. Instead, I will list them in alphabetical order. Some of these people may not meet your definition of Twitter "famous". I chose them because they participate and contribute, on Twitter and to the profession, not because they have a known name - you should do the same.

I was very surprised that many who write amazing PR blogs are not on Twitter, yet or have not thought of adding the Twitter link for people to follow them. You also probably guessed that my definition of PR is true public relations, and not just press releases, right?

Who did I forget? Let me know in the comments. Also, if you have a better description of your job, company, or title, add it here.

UPDATE: Neville Hobson created a TweepML list from this one so you can follow the whole list, or as many as you wish to follow from this list.

On September 23, Google announced Sidewiki, a feature on the sidebar of Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers that will allow you to contribute content to any page of the Web. Which means that companies can now stop having meetings about whether to open the comments to their blogs or not - and whether to legislate them. With Sidewiki, visitors will be able to share what they think with each other anyway - and right on your Web page.

Still think you can sit this one out?

Perhaps you're thinking that you are understaffed for this. If monitoring and listening is already on your radar, this will probably introduce a whole new challenge to both companies that sell monitoring tools and of your staff assigned to listening. Customers, partners, even competitors could potentially be part of your conversation - within the comforts of Sidewiki.

There's been plenty of conversation over Siedewiki already. Jeremiah Owyang gives us a quick dive from the customer seat, and my networks both on Twitter and Friendfeed have been abuzz with the news - and possibilities. People are checking it out and talking about it. All of a sudden, anyone can contribute relevant information and opinion to a Web page.

This is game changing on a variety of fronts:

social - this is first and foremost a social application

your customers may add information you shared on a personal basis, in an attempt to be helpful to their peers, or to clarify something you display on the site from their point of view

if you remember Forrester social technographics profile, you will know that many will probably be inactive - they still might be reading what others write, however and those who tend to be active are often very active

cross reference that behavioral inclination with the type of social profiles as outlined in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and you now have connectors, mavens and salespeople all doing what they do best on the sidebar

find dimension not only in depth with links, but also in breadth - now visitors to sites can check out a new layer of comments and conversations, one not hosted by your Webmaster

now more than ever relationships and experience from coming in contact with your brand will matter - they will be in public

What do you do next? I say test it. Find out how it works, how you'd use it. No sense hiding your head in the sand. Take it for a spin and think through some of the applications you would envision with it. Many predict it it won't be a hit.

Lively discussion over at BuzzMachine. In case you were wondering, comments are voted up. You know that spammers will join in only when and if it works - and it may not be worth the trouble for Google if it doesn't. What do you think?

UPDATE: some really valid concerns were brought up in the discussion on Friendfeed. As for comments on the Sidewiki... so far, it looks to me like a way *not* to be part of the conversation, coming from left field (the comment displays as a left bar near your blog). My preference is to be part of the conversation, and not to have my own little soapbox somewhere else.

SECOND UPDATE: Google steals the Web is a sobering read. Aside from being visual graffiti, I'm thinking there will be painful lawsuits to precede its demise.

“There's nothing you can really do to prepare to rock. Do you prepare
to eat a delicious meal? Are you hungry? Then you're gonna eat it.” [Jack Black]

If I were to give anyone a gift, it would be that of awareness - the ability to uncover and pursue what they can do best. What's your drive? How does that scale in organizations? What does that look like in the marketplace? Has the definition of value changed?

Jim Collins talked about the three circles,
the intersection of what you are passionate about, what you do really well, and what people will pay you for. Marcus Buckingham has been telling us about finding our strongest life. The power resides in motivation. You want motivation because, as Umair Haque says, the challenge of the 21st century is creative - learning to create fundamentally better stuff in the first place.

With motivation, it's important to define where you're coming from, what's your ultimate drive. Collins uses business as the data set for interesting questions, for example. It's also important to remember that sometimes we need to ask better questions - of ourselves first, and in the context of work with others.

The concept of awesomeness and conversation is a bit broader than say a customer community, or an advocacy program, or a branding effort for a business or career development. It doesn't identify with agreement, yet it doesn't need dissent to justify its fairness.

Opportunities - digging deeper, looking for what you respond to positively

The 4 pillar of awesomeness, according to Haque (in bold) and in my version for conversation are:

Ethical production - are you transparent about your motivations?

Insanely great stuff - how creative are you in the pursuit of your passion?

Love - do you love the process of creation?

Thick value - how is what you contribute making people authentically better off?

Balance is bunk in the same way that a conversation built for the sole purpose of hearing yourself talk is moot. Today at #kaizenblog chat we will discuss the four pillars of awesomeness with examples from your story. Join us there at 12 EST and participate here.

Haque's basics are true. But they're just the basics. What makes awesome is passion. It begins LONG before the conversation.

Jack Black is right. You don't plan to enjoy a great meal - if you're hungry, you just DO.

You don't plan to be awesome. You just ARE. Now - are your customers hungry?

Before learning about his project of co-authoring Trust Agents, I didn't know much about Julien's work. Now I'm in over my head - and it feels right to write that. There's a lot of good enough thinking going around these days, I like how Julien challenges us to make decisions - the opposite of marketing fluff is, after all, a decision.

Do you stand for something?

After I published my interview with Chris Brogan, a couple of people asked me why I was giving him yet more press. In case you haven't noticed yet, I like to have conversations with people who stand up and stand out.

Call it what you will, changing the game, blazing a new trail, I call it putting the action behind the talk. If you're one of those people, I notice without you pitching me. I still spend most of my time listening and observing online.

That's why I wanted to spend a few minutes with Julien and share his thoughts with you.

_______________

First of all, your blog CSS is one of the cleanest I've seen. I know, mighty geeky of me to notice. It's a recent redesign, or at least I noticed it recently. I like to lay claim to good taste in design - the whole made in Italy thing, you know. So kudos for that. The simplicity of it does encapsulate well what I've read so far. Until Trust Agents, I confess I didn't know much about you or your work. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with online communities?

Julien: I got into online communities around the age of 15. I remember getting my first computer, a 286, and by reading some books from the library I learned that it had a modem. From there I connected to some BBS's (local message boards) and met some people. Those were my first steps into making connections online.

I also ran flashmobs in the early 2000's. We built communities of people who were connected anonymously to each other by email, created missions, and got them together to perform them. We had a lot of fun doing that and got some press for it, which was nice.

Basically I've been involved with various forms of online communication for over half my life. It's as natural to me as in-person interactions are.
Oh, and the design of my blog was set up by a team in Montreal that I have a ton of respect for called Stresslimitdesign.

When I wrote you and Chris about receiving the book, I said: "It's the kind of book I *wish* I had written," [see note] and meant it. Our exchanges while I was reading and when I was done - a page turner, loved the ending - gave me the opportunity to connect with you for the first time. You wrote recently about reliability. Is that in your view one of the core tenets of being a trust agent? What are some of the ways one can demonstrate that with digital body language?

Julien: Yes, and I picked that up from two highly respected people in my life:
David Maister and Mitch Joel. The former wrote The Trusted Advisor,
which taught me about how reliability is one of the most important
aspects of trust, while Mitch taught me that reliability is key to any
successful blog or other social media project. It took me a while to
learn that.

Reliability is also *consistency* and that's what I would attempt to show with what you call "digital body language" more than anything. No matter how professional your words, you a need professional design, domain name, and lots of good references from other websites to support your professionalism. All these things that are well-known sales techniques are also good signals of trust.

My favourite movie is... I dunno, maybe Fight Club? That's all I can think of right now. :)

It's a known fact - or at least many of us believe it is - we each have at least one book in us. What made you want to to get yours out in the open?

Julien: (a) I don't believe in people telling me that I can't. I've stopped thinking that the people who've done something are somehow better than me, so I figured "why not?"

(b) Once you get to the other side of any gate, you realize that everything is "not a big deal." So I've started taking this attitude *before* I actually cross the gate (book publishing, in this case) and thinking, "if all these people can do this, I can too."

Who do you consider part of your team? If you were to share a word of advice with them, what would it be?

Julien: Chris and the people from the Media Hacks podcast are all part of my team. We've been there since the beginning of the social web movement and we've always helped each other out and stuck with each other. Like we say in the book, building a network like this, a small powerful one, will help you tremendously. Go find yourself one too. :)

_________

What about you? What's your philosophy? How do you contribute? Are you in over your head?

________

[Note] As I talk to people in customer care, operations, engineering and other functions in organizations, I hear that learning to communicate and collaborate more effectively is becoming more of a priority. What seems obvious to many of us, is getting more attention inside companies. That is good. These people don't generally read the blogs we read. A "souvenir" in the form of a book written simply, is a better primer. You know that simple is hard to do. Hence my comment to Julien.

Right now we're thinking about marketing and communications because of this incredible attention that social media is getting, especially by those who are doing it. We pay attention when we're attuned to something. Notice when you want to buy a car, you keep seeing that very model everywhere? That's because you're thinking about it specifically.

Social is not new, businesses have known about social for a long time. It's the greater access that we now have (potentially) to learn more about how to do stuff well through collaboration that we are excited about - or we should be. Imagine if you could connect with people who think like you throughout the organization. Business owners see the potential, and want to capitalize on it.

A couple of things happened that should make you think about your role:

your customers have limited time and attention to give

thus little details can make a really big difference

Before now, you were at the mercy of the media buy available. Let's say you sell incredible silver jewelry and you're part of a string of shops at a Mall or in one of those villages that are making a comeback. What are your options? You can buy the ad in the local directory and hope that gets the word out.

Of course, you can also make your customers happy, and they will tell others when they have an opportunity to do so. In fact, you know that it is your existing customers who are bringing in the most traffic - and business - to your store.

How can you give them better ways to make those referrals?

Whether email is the new offline or not, you can help your customers spread the word by asking if they would like to be included in your monthly email with offers. If you're really good, you also send them an email to remind them they told you it was ok to include them in the mailing and asking them to confirm that with you. In lead nurturing marketing, we call that double opt in.

You can also start a blog, use video to show how the artists you buy from make what you sell. Tell the stories of how the collections were put together. At the end of the day, what customers buy is a story they identify with. If you're a small business, your Web site could be a blog.

These are just a couple of ideas I wanted to jot down as it's fairly easy to shine a spotlight to what you do well by communicating more and giving your customers a way to spread it, if they so choose. For a small business with limited resources, doing stuff well translates into being more effective on the facilitated conversation end.

What happens if you're not a small business in touch with its customers and employees or partners? You could start by communicating better with your customers and employees. But make no mistake, doing stuff well means you are also putting time into all of the little details that make such a big difference in saving or investing the time giving you attention.

Enterprise 2.0 is not about technology, it's about the people and the organization, and finding pride again in doing stuff well.

Your customers are very needy. They're upset when they call you, they're constantly looking to get free services, and would not refer you explicitly to anyone.

Since they are so difficult, you decide to change the customer service process, you make it more efficient, which means less personal - hey, who needs to be berated by customers? - and answer calls only with official-looking communications.

This could have happened even as you decided to put more time and attention into communicating with your customers, using new channels, as you think of them, to let them know about all of the great new services you're selling. Do you think you have a problem?

Drama is not the only kind of model that presupposes a collaborative effort in the modes of production and a collective form of reception. The enactment of a script is part of modern practices. What happened if instead of having a story already written, you enacted it as it comes? What if you improvised?

Improvisation allows you to put a human face on the business. It puts you in a place where time and attention are given with a specific focus on the present, what's happening now.

Our own meaning of drama comes from ancient Greece. Having studied plenty of Greek, Latin, and the classic over the years, I thought it would be fun to take a look at what kind of improvised customer service we'd have with each genre and to do so on both sides of the fence:

tragedy - your customers have suffered a great deal over the lack of your services, a brutal offense was committed behind the scenes and you're now trying to exact justice; your customer service rep has committed the extreme human action of reciting from script and not listening

comedy - if you're not staging an experience worth talking about, eventually your ending with customers may cause laughter; what happens when it's your customer service team that thinks it's alright to have a laugh or two at the expense of service?

satire - this is when your customers are taking it in stride and decide to humor themselves - and their friends - by posting about what they think of you online; if your team is insolent, it may mean that it cannot face a conversation with customers

Medieval drama - thinking about the Church of the Customer here - if you have customer evangelists, make sure that you have many of those among your team

opera - that's when your customers have plenty of passion to get out with their story; on the company side, there may be use of smaller teams (orchestras) as a cost-cutting measure due to smaller budgets

pantomime - the telling of stories, often improvised, which gave lessons with the crowd. Also, depending on where this is performed, the main character would change - the customer has their audience, and so does the service team.

The last one feels like the most modern of all, doesn't it? Here's the best part of all though - although to tell your story you need characters and a context, you're in control of both. In other words, if you go to the trouble of constructing a story, why not fix it so that the reality can follow up in positive and productive ways?

New media has changed the way we receive and share news and information. If it's true that people shifted from just consumers of news to news makers, it's also true that without mass media, we would have a really hard time getting most of the information that is passed on as newsworthy today.

Taking a very brief class on the characteristics that make a story newsworthy:

Timing - this is pretty easy for us to tell, if it's something that is happening now, or just happened, it is news.

Proximity - it is also likely that something that happened locally, or in a place we have affinity with, be considered news.

Prominence - you know that celebrities and famous people get more coverage. It was interesting to see how even on Twitter, when people in this group signed on, they immediately accumulated thousands of followers.

Significance - as well, the number of people affected by something determines the newsworthiness of the story.

Human interest - the more timeless kinds of news stories are those we connect with at emotional level. You might think that these kinds of story should not be considered newsworthy, and you'd probably be correct.

Given that more of us get their news online than they ever had before, and given that online is not just a new distribution system - it's also about aggregation, interaction, contextualization and having the ability to be flexible with updates as the story develops - journalists must adapt to the medium.

Which means that they should also become fluent in some of the newer technologies and tools they can leverage to be more efficient and timely in their reporting. We all have the same or similar tools, rarely we have the same training.

I agree with Dan Gillmor, even those of us like me who are active content creators, still consume more content and news stories than we're able to produce. We want journalists, and we need them because of the characteristics that set them apart. In fact, to be a good journalist, you must (elaborated from the article):

Be skeptical of everything - a journalist I admire greatly taught me that skepticism means requiring he official reality to explain itself. This is a call to exercising critical thinking, which often gets lost in the desire to be accepted as part of a group, or tribe.

Use a scale of experience and education to decide what to trust - all things being equal is a lie, things are never equal, and it's up to you to decide how to weigh them appropriately. Granted, online someone with a well-designed site could "look" more credible. I'm thinking that social creds should weigh in here.

Step out of the "echo chamber" - if you read only what you agree with, you will have a hard time staying well informed. This requires that one constantly challenges assumptions, seeks out opposing views, and remains active in pursuing new angles.

Do your homework - do you search for more than one reference on a story? Asking more questions takes time, but it's a good way to really get a hold of a topic and help tell the story more fully. Personally, I like it when I find conflicting data points on something, it helps me dig deeper.

Understand and learn digital media tools - this is both to help with speed and adaptability, as well as see how the tools can easily be used to persuade and manipulate. Just because it's easy to publish and spread information, it doesn't always mean that it is true or accurate.

Credibility continues to matter and to me the big issue remains transparency. This is valid both for journalist and businesses. Adapting to new media still means that when you got something wrong, you admit it, and you can do so promptly today.

Transparency is also the gift of letting the reader know what you mean when you write and what you don't know. For those, I am more than happy to receive contributions from the many smart readers here. Why couldn't news organizations do the same? Here's what we know, and here's what we don't know - asking smart questions is one of the hallmarks of good journalism.

Let's face it, we do need more original thinkers. Much of the Web content today is recycled just as much of TV news programming. Do you see yourself as a news creator? How do you use digital media to stay up to speed on information for your business?

Are you adapting or merely keeping up? Think about your use of sourcing and hyperlinks? Does it resemble that of news organizations - in other words, is it non existent?

Conversation Agent

Conversation Agent focuses on business, technology, digital culture, and customer psychology. At Conversation Agent LLC, I help organizations and brands that want to build better customer experiences tell a new story.